#1940s bucky
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader
Warnings:Description of war and battle injuries, mentions of blood, gunshots, language, etc.
Summary: Bucky doesn’t like talking about her, but Dr. Raynor isn’t an easy person to argue with. And now that it’s summer –– now that he’s living through the months they’d shared together all over again, only without her by his side –– fighting the memories becomes all the more difficult.
A/N: Listen, I really don’t know what’s gotten into me but ever since tfatws started I have been INSPIRED! Hoping to update this fic sem regularly, but we’ll see where the new school term takes us. As always, I hope you enjoy, and feel free to let me know what you think!
Bucky Barnes has never been overly fond of the summer.
One aspect was the fact that he could remember what it was like to be a miserable kid living in a cramped Brooklyn apartment with no air conditioning and three baby sisters who never stopped whining about the heat. Of all the jumbled, foggy memories bouncing around the confines of his skull, that one is clearer than most. And though he still finds it difficult to picture the faces of his little sisters –– can’t hardly remember arcs of their noses, much less the colors of each of their eyes –– a nostalgic, brotherly feeling washes over him all the same.
There’s also the little detail that he’d received his draft notice in the summer months. That Bucky remembers perfectly, one of the few memories strong enough to remain unmuddied by all those years of shitbag scientists rooting around his head and picking his brain apart. The heat that year had been sweltering, and once his mother found him in her kitchen with that damned letter clutched between his fingers, he felt it burn right through the strings of his heart.
The first week of July delivered the news. The last saw him shipping out to bootcamp.
He guessed he didn’t mind the sunshine. That part had always been nice, and it helped to calm him on occasion these days, to remember that the golden rays licking comforting heat up his skin were the same ones which had shone down on him back in the 40s, before and during the war.
Before Hydra had condemned him to seventy long years of dark and cold.
To that end, logic said the season he really should hate was winter, but he’d never felt any ill will toward the colder months, and found now, in the present, that he’d only grown fonder of them. When the rain came down from the sky in sheets, or when snow fell so thick it resembled white, puffy clouds blanketing the ground, he took walks. Partly because no other soul would be idiotic enough to trudge through a borderline natural disaster at three in the morning, meaning he wouldn’t have to put up with prying eyes and conspicuously pointing fingers, and partly because experiencing said natural disasters in solitude did wonders for the soul.
Steve thought it was strange. Hated that Bucky did it, kept insisting that he at least take a goddamn jacket, there isn’t any actual proof he can’t get pneumonia. But Bucky always shook his head and declined, rolling his eyes and muttering beneath his breath about how apparently the tables have fucking turned.
But, no. The winter, the rain, the cold –– none of that could ever draw half as much ire from him as did the gentle beginnings of June, the scorching heat of July, the fading light of August. Because those weren’t the things which served as reminders from before.
Reminders of her.
“James. Did you hear me?”
Bucky blinks hard, freeing his gaze from the wall calendar tacked up and viewable just over his doctor’s shoulder. Glancing down, he sees the familiar green of the velvet armchair –– one of three options for patients to choose from in her office, and Bucky’s personal favorite on account of the way its textures did something to sooth him as he gripped its arm anxiously with his flesh hand –– and the worn, fraying knees of his black jeans against it. He doesn’t bother meeting his therapist’s gaze. He already knows which of her expressions he’ll find her leveling at him, if he does.
“Sorry,” Bucky mutters, sucking his teeth. He hopes his voice isn’t quite as strained as it sounds –– though, judging by the way Dr. Raynor clucks her tongue as her fingers twitch toward her pen, it definitely is. “Guess I’m a little scattered today.”
The sardonic hum Raynor gives in response as she knowingly tilts her head nearly makes him open his mouth to finish the silent argument she’d started, but Bucky knows better than that. The moment he starts up, she’ll feign innocence and inquire as to why he feels the need to defend himself when no verbal accusation has been made. God damn, it would be just his luck to end up with the one government assigned therapist actually capable at her job.
“That’s what you said yesterday,” Dr. Raynor offers. “And the two days before, if memory serves me right.”
Bucky shakes his head and tsks, tapping a metal finger against his temple. “Not a funny joke, doc. Remember the audience you’re dealing with here.”
“‘Deflecting.’”
The word drops from Raynor’s mouth with a simpleness that puzzles him.
“‘Scuse me?” he prompts when she only goes on to stare at him owlishly.
“Oh, that’s what I’d be writing in my notebook,” she explains simply, folding her hands together in her lap and leaning back in her chair. “If we were using it right now, that is.”
Again, Bucky rolls his eyes, and has to make an active attempt not to cross his arms like a forlorn child. The threat in her words is easily recognizable, not that she’d really bothered trying to conceal it. She knows that damn notebook irritates him more than any other aspect of their current arrangement, and he knows she’s not bluffing. If he doesn’t start talking, Raynor starts writing –– and if Raynor starts writing, he gets tailed by government watchdogs to ensure there are no imminent incidents lurking in the near future.
He sighs dejectedly and meets her gaze. “What was it you asked me?”
“What it is about the month of June that makes you so uncomfortable.”
Bucky blinks, red alarm bells shrieking in his head. Fuck, he can’t help but think. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Caught red handed.
“June’s fine,” he tries, but even to his own ears the assurance sounds weak. To think, he’d once been the most prolific tool of espionage around –– now he can hardly deliver a lie with a straight face. “Don’t have any feelings toward it one way or the other.”
“Strike two,” Raynor quips, glancing one again toward her pen.
Fuck!
Exhaling sharply through his nose, Bucky sits a little straighter in his seat, searching for any semblance of comfort to be found while already knowing he was bound to come up short. Damn it all. She wasn’t going to let him out of this one.
“Alright, hold your horses,” he sighs, waving a halting hand. Raynor’s expression doesn’t shift. She simply continues peering at him with her dark eyes, waiting patiently for his next few words to come. “Why do you assume I’ve got a problem with June?”
“Because you didn’t start staring at that calendar until it switched over from May,” Raynor supplies. “Like I mentioned, today isn’t the only day you’ve been scattered. Seems like something we should consider talking about.”
“No,” Bucky answers quickly. Too quickly. Shit. If she thought he’d been deflecting before, he didn’t even want to know the words running through her mind in regards to his behavior now. “I mean–– well, no. I don’t think it’s that important.”
Raynor arches a brow. “Funny,” she tells him, “the way your eyes keep drifting back to the word ‘June’ tells me otherwise.”
He sighs, worrying the inside of his cheek with his teeth. Caught between a rock and an even bigger, weightier rock. The universe really wasn’t one to take his side often.
Bucky knows there really isn’t any choice here. Either he does what Raynor asks and elaborates on his suspicious behavior, or he risks facing the repercussions of those notes she’ll be jotting down in her notebook. Which of the two evils is more definitively the lesser, he can’t rightly say, but he knows which of the consequences he’d prefer to suffer through. And they’re certainly not the ones which see him robbed of the ability to walk freely down the street without a detail of armed babysitters.
So he figures that, maybe for once, being honest can’t be the worst decision to make.
“A few years ago, back before the blip,” Bucky tries, “I spent a summer in Wakanda.”
“Housed by the royal family,” Raynor nods, tone soft. “We’ve spoken about that before. You said you found it peaceful there. That you liked it.”
He did, and still does. On the nights when his mind isn’t quiet enough to let him find sleep but his heart feels light enough to forego the slideshow of horrors he’d been made to suffer throughout the years, Bucky’s thoughts often return to the bliss which life in Wakanda had offered him. He’d remember the farm he kept there, the little children who would come to sing and play and dance in trees to keep him company in the afternoons. He’d remember Princess Shuri –– Just Shuri, James, come now –– and the kindness she’d displayed in deactivating the deeper, most concerning parts of his programming. The day she’d told him it was done, turned off, that he’d never be forced to revert back to the Soldier against his will again, he’d rushed her and caught her up in a bearhug so relieved and forceful that her Dora Milaje detail had actually pointed their spears at him. He’d remember the tranquility of it all, the simpleness.
The peace.
There’s no hope of him being able to return to that place any time soon, much as he’d like to, but the memories sit resolutely concrete in his mind. The first of a new set which he’d never have to worry about being stolen away from him by the currents of an electric shock.
“It’s a nice place,” Bucky affirms, sighing wistfully at the thoughts swirling up in his head. “I bring it up because back then, that summer… I started remembering a few things. From before.”
Raynor keeps her face smooth and composed, but Bucky notices the twitch in her cheek that says she’s got a question. “When you say before,” she asks, voice gentle, “do you mean your time as the Winter Soldier?”
He shakes his head, swallowing thickly. Ironically, things would be easier, were that the case. He might not be so miserable in the present, seeing the month of June start all over again. The melancholy might not be so strong. “No, not then. I mean from before. From the 40s, during the war. I don’t know if it was Wakanda’s heat that did it, or that my programming was officially deactivated. But one night I went to sleep in my hut like normal, and then the next morning I woke up, and… and I remembered.”
Raynor clasps her hand together in her lap, the pen, the notebook, the hesitation all forgotten. Bucky sees it in her expression, the shock at the fact that he’s speaking, that she’s actually making progress in getting him to talk about things so painful he often wonders if they aren’t better left in the past. He’s still trying to figure that one out. Miserable as he’s been for the first four days of June, he figures nothing good or relieving or positive can come from retelling this particular tale. It’s all behind him now, and there isn’t anything to be done to change the ending in any significant way.
But… but he figures he owes it to her. As painful as the memories are, they can’t be anything in comparison to what she must have gone through in the aftermath of it all.
Slowly, Raynor crosses one ankle over the other. “What was it that you remembered, James?”
Bucky sighs, closing his eyes and inhaling as deep a breath as he can pull. He lets it loose after counting to six, then opens his eyes again and crosses his arms over his chest. “It started back in June of 1944. I got shot.”
––
June 1st, 1944
It was damn lucky you weren’t sleeping much these days.
A funny thought, really. One which brings a sarcastic, bitter smile to your lips as you bend your neck to get a closer look at your handiwork. Wasn’t it just two nights ago that you’d been laying in your cot, staring up at the moon through the flap of your tent and counting all the reasons it wasn’t fair that the bliss of unconsciousness evaded you? Wasn’t it three that you’d considered sneaking into the med tent and downing a few of the sleeping pills meant for the soldiers? You hadn’t, of course –– god only knew the sort of trouble you’d get in if it came to pass that you were caught –– but the consideration had been there all the same.
“Fuckin’shit!”
The foul language, mixed with the rough jerk of the body beneath your dexterous hands, was enough to steal your attention back from your jaded inner monologue. Nearly two years back, when you’d first signed on to work as a field nurse, the pained outburst would have sent you flinching. Now, the swearing isn’t anything new, and thankfully for the soldier whose leg you were currently stitching up, it was no longer anywhere near enough to give you pause.
“You better hold still unless you want this to scar even worse than it’s already going to,” you tell him matter of factly, gently tugging the thread the rest of the way through your current stitch.
The soldier –– Matthews? Moore? You can hardly remember the name he’d gasped at you in pain, but you’re sure it started with an ‘M’ –– rakes his dirty hands over his even dirtier face, brown eyes squeezing themselves shut as his fingers quake with agony. “Sorry,” he rasps, skin paling. “Just… Jesus, shit hurts so bad!”
You cluck your tongue, guilt racking your heart as you push the needle through his skin once more. “Shouldn’t have gotten shot then, genius,” you murmur, shaking your head disapprovingly.
It works. For a moment the soldier’s face twists in disbelief, and in the next, a shuddering, wheezing gasp of laughter expels itself from his throat. The sight is bleak, but it’s enough to twist your heart with warmth as you once again pull the thread through the stitch. You’d learned in the first few months of working as a nurse on the frontlines that the last thing these men wanted or needed was to be coddled along over their injuries, especially by a woman. Vulnerability was more averse to them now than ever before.
Personally, you don’t much understand it –– but your work isn’t, and has never been, about yourself.
“Look, why don’t you tell me something,” you start, glancing up to… Morrison’s…? face in apology before sticking him with the needle yet again. He jerks, but not quite so violently this time. Another one down. Only about a thousand more to go tonight. “How’d all this happen? I thought you boys weren’t meant to scope the new territory until tomorrow afternoon. Y’know, in the daylight? When you can actually see whether or not someone in the distance is pointing a gun at you?”
“Unit leader was gettin’ jumpy,” the soldier coughs out, groaning against the pain. Guilt stabs your heart like a knife. You’d have given him something for the pain if you had it, something to numb the wound. But shipments of med supplies were behind, and it would be at least a week before you got your hands on anything like that again. “Said going at night would be better, that we could get the drop on them before they even knew we were coming.”
“Yeah,” you scoff, rolling your eyes. “Never mind the fact that their soldiers know the land better than ours do.”
So, the unit leader had jumped the gun. You’d figured as much, when two of your nurses had run into your tent with messy hair and sleep addled expressions, panicking about the oncoming slew of injured soldiers who needed immediate medical attention. That had been two hours, six patients, and about one hundred and ninety seven stitches ago.
Again. It was lucky you weren’t sleeping much these days.
The soldier whose leg you were currently stitching up opened his mouth to speak –– whether to snark along with you at the poor choice made by the unit’s leadership or to blindly defend his superior’s decision, you couldn’t be altogether sure –– but before he could even fix his mouth to properly shape the words, a sudden roar of someone else’s agony effectively cut him off.
Steadying your hands, you carefully turn to peer over your shoulder, searching for the source of the commotion. All night, you’d been surrounded by a cacophony of screaming soldiers, but that yell of pain is one you’re certain hasn’t yet met your ears. And, as you watch the flap of the med tent swing back before admitting entry to three people –– one of your nurses and two soldiers, one leaning bodily against the other –– you discover that your assumption is correct.
“We got a bad one,” the nurse –– Sally, curly haired, nearing twenty four and a bit more capable than the other girls when met with the sight of blood –– shouts. Her eyes scan the tent, searching and searching until her gaze finally lands on you. She pauses only a moment to turn and direct the uninjured soldier to drag the one he’s supporting over to an empty cot before barrelling in your direction. “Gunshot wound to the abdomen. I haven’t really had the chance to get a good look at it, but he’s–– well, to be frank, that man has lost a shit ton of blood.”
A gutshot. Poor guy would either go through a sickening amount of pain just to die, or he’d survive, and end up having to endure even more pain. Either way, in light of your depleted supply of painkillers, ‘excruciating’ didn’t even begin to describe it.
Oh,damn it all.
“Take over here for me,” you command, gesturing with your chin to the needle perched between your fingers. Sally’s already moving to pluck it from your hand before you’ve even finished speaking. “He’s got about fifteen to go before we even think about sending him back to his tent. Don’t let him convince you otherwise.”
“You don’t think I know better?” Sally remarks drily, but you don’t have the time to come up with a witty comeback. You’re already on your feet and rushing toward the soldier writhing in pain across the tent, reflexively grabbing a collection of gauze, thread, tweezers, and rubbing alcohol along the way.
This isn’t going to be much fun for either of you.
The first thing you do is excuse the uninjured soldier, the one who’d carried him in. For one, there isn’t any need to keep him witness, and for another, you work better when an addition of unnecessary eyes aren’t tracking your every move. Besides. You doubt the poor soul laying on your med cot is at all interested in one of his peers –– one not sick or out of his mind due to his own pain, that is –– see him in this state. So, you simply thank the young man for his assistance and shoo him back in the direction from which he’d come, waiting until he’s passed the tent’s entrance before turning your full, undivided attention to your newest patient.
He’s got his eyes screwed shut tight in pain. You can hardly blame him. Of all the wounds to suffer through, a gutshot has the potential to win least desirable. It’s easy enough to see why, as the young man’s handsome features carve themselves into an expression of despair. A slick sheen of sweat coats his pale forehead, dampening his dark hair and sticking it to his skin. He’s biting down so hard on his bottom lip in effort to swallow his screams that you’re genuinely shocked he hasn’t drawn blood.
Though, part of you wonders if there’s even enough blood left in his body for his lip to bleed. Deep scarlet blooms stain his green shirt, so thoroughly soaked through that the fabric has turned almost black. Swathes of red cover his torso, his pants, the pale skin of his arms. It’s everywhere, already leaking onto the white sheets of the cot.
Sally wasn’t kidding. He really has lost a shit ton of blood.
“Hey there, soldier,” you start up, setting your collection of medical supplies down before taking a closer look at his torso. Shirt sticking to his skin the way it is, you aren’t going to be able to get much done until it’s out of the way. And, given that this man is certainly in no state to shrug it off himself, you’ve got no choice but to cut it. Lucky that you’d thought to grab a pair of scissors too, you suppose. “Don’t suppose you might be able to help a girl out by telling her what year it is?”
His jaw works for a few moments, teeth grinding together so forcefully the sound is audible. You think he might be gearing up to let loose another scream before he shakes his head a single time. “I got–– got shot,” he wheezes, whole body shaking, “not concussed. Don’t–– ah, don’t really… get how the year’s relevant.”
You exhale a bemused scoff through your nose, considering your response as your scissors work their way through the bloody fabric concealing his wound. You’re working as gently as you can, and so far it seems to be doing the trick. The soldier hasn’t flinched once since you started, though it’s hard to tell if that’s more due to the fact that he hadn’t noticed any difference one way or the other, or if it’s because he’s dedicating what strength he has left to keeping his head screwed onto his shoulders.
“Fair point,” you reply, still carefully cutting through his shirt. “How about a name, then? Little more relevant to the conversation, I’d say.”
It takes a few moments of silence for him to respond –– almost as if he’s trying to remember that he’s got a name –– but eventually, it comes.
“James,” he tells you, the single syllable leaving his mouth in a pained grunt.
You nod, cutting away the last of the fabric. “Nice to meet you, James,” you tell him, carefully peeling the tatters of his ruined shirt from his abdomen. “You just hold tight a little longer for me, alright? We’ll fix you up good as new.”
It isn’t a pretty sight, what you find beneath. Under all that red is a nasty wound, jagged and swollen at the edges, punched into the flesh just beneath the southmost edge of his ribcage. Thankfully, no bones have been hit –– a shattered rib would be immediately evident, both in the pitch of his screams and the deformed shape of his chest –– but the wound is more than a little inflated. There’s a puffiness to it that you can’t comprehend, a stiffness to its perimeter that doesn’t click in your mind, until––
Until you see the small, dark center, and suddenly it does.
You swear beneath your breath, a filthy, ugly word that you’d picked up a few weeks back from one of your patients. You don’t even know what it means, not really, but speaking it feels cathartic enough that you don’t altogether care.
Oh, sweet, holy hell.
James cracks an eye open, muttering, “Darlin’, you rea–– you really gotta work on your bedside manner.”
“Alright, listen to me, James,” you tell him, forgoing a witty response. You don’t have the time, not considering what you’re now dealing with, and you figure James will appreciate your working hands more than he’ll appreciate your shitty attempts at banter. “There’s… there’s something I need to do for you, before I can start patching you up. Now, normally I could give you something for the pain, but we’re out of the anesthetic I need. So this isn’t gonna… it’s not gonna feel very good.”
James looses a labored sigh, oddly calm for the clear anguish marring his face. “Shit, well good news,” he mutters, swallowing thickly, “it already doesn’t.”
His lashes flutter in a telltale manner, one which lets you know he’s getting closer to the brink and you’re running short on time. It’s easy enough, not to give in to the panic this incites in your chest. You’ve been doing this job a long time now, know that what James needs is your calm, your level-headedness. Those things have a higher chance of keeping him alive, of seeing to it that he comes out of this on the other side. Scarred up, maybe, and without the ability to breathe as deep as he once could, but still alive.
You shake your head, grabbing the tweezers from where you’d set them down before planting your forearm against an uninjured section of James’ bare chest for leverage. “Alright, big breaths, James. You scream as loud as you want or need to, but just… try and stay as still as you can, okay? I won’t be able to stop until it’s done.”
The only answer he gives in response is a shaky nod, the thick black fringe of his lashes brushing his cheekbones as his lips begin to move at a speed with which your eyes can hardly track. A prayer, you figure, or a plea for a quick end. Whichever it is, it helps him to relax just the tiniest bit more, slightly smooths out the lines of pain and suffering etched into his face.
Until you start digging with the tweezers, that is.
Then it’s all white hot screams of pain.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper beneath his cries, words drowned out by the sheer volume of the howls ripping out of his throat. But you don’t stop working, don’t withdraw the tweezers from his bloody wound. You hadn’t been joking when you told him starting meant you couldn’t stop until you finished. Abandoning the task now meant leaving James to bleed out in a matter of seconds. “I know it hurts, I’m sorry. You’re doing good, though, alright? You’re doing amazing. I’m sorry.”
It takes a moment for the tweezers’ edges to find the metal bullet lodged in his skin. At first, all you can feel is a mess of flesh and muscle, shredded and frayed from the impact of the gunshot. For a few short seconds, you wonder if your eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on you, if it would have been more wise to search for an exit wound on his back than to simply jump straight in without taking the time to stop and think.
But your worries are unfounded –– proven two seconds later when your tweezers make contact with the tiny, foreign object threatening James’ life. Carefully, you maneuver the tweezers into the correct position to properly take hold of the bullet. Then, with one last whispered apology, you slowly and carefully begin to pull.
James’ legs buck hard against the cot, arms straining at his sides where he’s got both his hands fisted into the sheets in an attempt to hold on for dear life. His teeth chatter against each other, knocking and clacking as he tries to get ahold of the screams pouring freely from him, and that thin sheen of sweat coating his skin has turned into a full on tidal wave.
But his torso doesn’t move –– not a single inch.
“We’re almost done,” you assure him, keeping your hand steady as you continue gently easing the bullet up, and up, and up. You can just make out the silver edges of it now, slick with blood and dented. It won’t be long now, before it’s out and you can start working on staunching the blood leaking from his body. Maybe you can lift his spirits with a joke or two then, a witty comment to ease some of the pain. Maybe––
The bullet slips from the tweezers, catching you off guard and jerking your hand to the left. It’s only by a centimeter, not a huge distance, but given that you’ve got edges of metal inserted into this man’s wound, to him, it makes all the difference in the world.
James throws his head back and screams, loud enough that you can instantly hear his vocal cords go raw beneath the strain of the volume. A single word leaves his lips; it sounds like Ma, only it’s warped, strangled. Much as you detest the fact, you know the sound well. A soldier crying out for his mother while under the thrall of delirium and pain isn’t exactly a rarity around these parts.
Guilt twists your heart with the razor sharpness of a cruel knife.
“Stop,” he gasps, voice hoarse. “P-please–– pleasestop!”
“I can’t,” you tell him, already repositioning your tweezers and going back in. Luckily, the bullet is much closer to the surface of his wound now. It only takes a second before you find another grip on it, instantly deciding to forego gentleness in favor of speed. “But the good news is––” With a slight bend of your wrist and a soft, wet pop, the bullet comes loose from his wound. “––we’re done with the shitty part.”
James’ eyes, glassy with pain and pupils blown wide, fall first to the bullet you hold up for his perusal, set against a backdrop of lowlight and your blood covered hand, before wandering their way up to your face. It’s then that you notice his irises are water blue and clear as crystal. You’re not sure why, but their color fascinates you.
“I wanna keep that,” he mutters weakly.
Then, his lashes flutter rapidly and his head lolls to the side, his lungs expelling a great, big breath before shuddering to a halt.
Your heart lurches at the sight. For one, awful moment, you think you’ve just put the poor man through all of that pain and agony only to end up somehow killing him in the process –– never mind the fact that this isn’t the first time you’ve extracted a bullet from a soldier’s abdomen, and certainly isn’t likely to be the last. But then his chest starts up moving again, at a much less worrisome pace. It’s slow, and his breaths are shallow, but they’re still breaths.
Unconscious –– not dead.
The realization is enough to make you send a mental note of thanks to whichever being was kind enough to have shown James mercy.
You allow yourself the shortest of moments to bask in the relief –– that you’d successfully extracted the bullet, that James hadn’t died during or after your attempts to do so, that you aren’t now left to set in motion the process of another condolence letter being shipped across seas to his family.
And once it passes, once you’ve inhaled and exhaled and wiped your hands on a cloth, you grab a cloth and press it to James’ wound, setting to work on stopping his bleeding –– but not before wrapping the bullet you’d just dislodged from his body in a pad of gauze and tucking it into the breast pocket of your uniform.
––
SPIN YOU AROUND MASTERPOST
Masterlist|Not edited yet
1940s!Bucky x Reader
Status:COMPLETE
Bucky was your world and you were his, but that was before he was ripped away by Hydra, he promised he’d always come back to you, despite all odds and more importantly time, will he keep that promise?
